Tachodisc In The News
Key legislative dates for 2012
This year the country will host the Olympic Games and celebrate the Queen’s Coronation. It will also bring a tranche of new legalisation and further changes for the road transport industry; for reference here is a reminder of some of the key legislative dates for your diary.
Current - Operator Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC)
Syllabus changes to the Operator Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) have NOW been imposed to incorporate both National and International qualifications as one.
OCR’s new CPCs in Road Haulage and Passenger Transport will both consist of a single multiple choice assessment and a single case study assessment. The multiple choice assessment will be available as a quarterly, paper-based test from March 2012. From June, OCR have stated that it will also be available on screen and on demand, allowing candidates to sit or re-sit an assessment at a convenient time and to enable results to be received quickly. The case study assessment will only be available quarterly as a paper based test.
11th May – Self-Employed in Scope of RTD.
Owner-drivers must adhere to the Road Transport Directive (RTD) from May. The RTD will limit self-employed drivers to a 48-hour working time average, a 60-hour cap and breaks from work, and insists that records are kept for two years.
30th April 2012 - Changes to the current Operator Compliance Risk Score (OCRS)
The key changes, which should create a more robust, more flexible and accurate system are as follows:
Predictive scoring
Predictive scores will be replaced with no score – a ‘grey fleet’ marking. This will show that VOSA has no data with which to rate that operator’s risk of non-compliance.
Available data
VOSA will be moving from a rolling two-year dataset that calculates the OCRS from the end of the previous month to a rolling three-year dataset, starting from May 2009, which will calculate the OCRS from the end of the previous week.
Points system
To help operators understand the points system more clearly, VOSA is changing the point allocation for traffic offences to the same system as for mechanical defects – graduated based on the severity of the offence. So, rather than different points for each defect or offence, they will be moving to a set number of points based upon the seriousness of the defect or offence.
Prosecutions
Rather than allocating a score when VOSA sends the paperwork to a court to issue a summons, points for a prosecution will in future only be added in the instance of a conviction.
September 2012 – Countdown to Driver CPC
LGV drivers will have only 24 months to complete the required 35 hours of periodic training.
PCV drivers will have just 12 months. Drivers who fail to achieve the training on time will legally be unable to drive professionally and face having their vehicle seized.
October 2012 - Amends to Annex 1B of the Digital Tachograph Specifications
In line with another revised digital tachograph specification being introduced, further amends to Annex 1B of the digital tachograph specifications will come into effect. This will see information from the motion sensor being checked against vehicle data, with any discrepancies logged as faults to detect tampering.
New Generation of Digital Tachographs
In May / June, there should also be further clarification on the changes being proposed for digital tachographs that are due to come into force in 2017 / 2018. The recommendations surround the need to increase the security and therefore the trustworthiness of the digital tachograph, and include:
• Merging the digital driver card with the driving licence
• Extending the security encryption on both the driver card and vehicle unit
• Adding a GNSS (GPS) module into the tachograph to record the start and end point of a journey
• Incorporating functionality that would allow enforcement agencies to interrogate the digital tachograph remotely at the roadside without stopping a vehicle.
Full details of the proposals will be published in a White Paper that Tachodisc in association with Motor Transport will launch at the CV Show this month.
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